


Affection, always

by Mifune



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: A little bit of angst, Domestic Fluff, Jack can't cook for shit, M/M, They have petty fights but they make up because they're both dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 17:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12988548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mifune/pseuds/Mifune
Summary: Jack ruins the Christmas dinner and Gabriel tells him the worst puns ever.





	Affection, always

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChloeMorrison](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloeMorrison/gifts).



> I had so much fun writing this! This is set two or three years before Overwatch fall, just to keep with the official timeline.  
> Happy Holidays!

Ana slaps McCree’s boots away from her desk when she enters her office. McCree’s soft snores immediately cease and he tilts his hat upwards to smile at her.

Behind Ana follows Fareeha. She smiles at Jesse and jumps to sit on the desk of her mother, his feet touching the floor, a proof of how old she already is.

“What brings you here, Jesse?” asks Ana and leaves some documents underneath the paperweight. McCree lifts his feet to the desk again, eliciting a sigh from Ana, who doesn’t say anything and just leaves him be. “Our flight is in five hours.”

“I was wonderin’…” Jesse pauses and Ana raises an eyebrow, suddenly intrigued by his short silence. “Have you seen my boss?”

Ana blinks, surprised by the question. “Isn’t he in his office?”

“I haven’t seen him since yesterday,” says McCree but he doesn’t seem alarmed or preoccupied. He simply reclines against the chair and shrugs. “His comm is off and he did leave without sayin’ anythin’.”

“Shouldn’t that be a serious matter?” replies Ana, a lot of situations popping in her head. Maybe Gabriel was kidnapped? Or went on a dangerous mission all by himself? Or maybe got trapped somewhere without any form of communication?

“Nah,” answers McCree and Ana’s worry almost dissolves. The cowboy looks at the ceiling. “I have the feelin’ he just didn’t want anyone to know where he is.”

“A gut feeling?” asks Ana.

A shit-eating grin appears on McCree’s face. “Now, that’s what Gabriel would call a ‘sixth-sense for chismes’. A _chismosa_ feelin’, y’know.”

Fareeha starts giggling and Ana can’t help the smile on her face. “So you just want to gossip,” says Ana.

“Yeah, that’s right, ma’am,” McCree sighs exaggeratedly. “The base is so empty. Everyone in Overwatch went back home for the holidays and in Blackwatch everyone is tryin’ to get shitfaced three days before, so it’s really borin’, see?”

“And where is Genji?” this time, Fareeha is the one to ask.

McCree sighs exaggeratedly again. “Y’know how he always disappears around this time of the year? Yeah, these holidays ain’t the exception. I’m surrounded by weird people, Ana, please get me out of here.”

Ana doesn’t reply immediately. Instead, she urges Fareeha to stop sitting on her desk and takes out from the drawer the plane tickets. One for McCree, one for Fareeha and one for herself. She also takes out her comm, turns it off and places it on her desk, close to the bunch of documents the UN sent her.

McCree smiles, getting up at the sight of the plane tickets. Fareeha, at his side, punches him slightly on the ribs. “I’m taking you down this year at the practice range,” she warns and McCree just laughs.

“Yeah, whatever you say, you sore loser,” replies McCree and Fareeha punches him again, playfully.

Ana pushes them both to the exit, McCree and Fareeha still bantering, and closes her office behind her.

She can understand Gabriel on why he left without saying anything to anyone. “I just hope the two of them get the presents I sent them,” Ana says to herself.

McCree instantly turns around. “What? Who?”

“Nothing,” replies Ana. “Let’s go.”

*

There is a place Gabriel holds close to his heart.

The wallpaper is kind of ruined by the mold and the ceiling has weird grey splotches. The whole house smells like dust and rotten wood. The façade really needs a paint job and the few plants on the backyard are borderline dead.

But it is the home of his _abuelita_. The house he inherited after she passed away when he was on the SEP.

The whole place brings back memories of his childhood. Tumultuous and sometimes not fair, this is the house that protected him. Just stepping on the porch, Gabriel can remember the smell of chocolate and tamales and the strong voice of his grandma urging him to go wash his hands.

However, this time when he opens the door, he’s not received by the strong yet gentle voice of his abuelita. The lights are on in the kitchen, but it doesn’t smell like hot chocolate and the food of his childhood.

Instead, he can see blond hair and a broad back behind the counter. It smells a little burnt and he can almost hear curses barely muttered. Something that sounds like: ‘shit, fuck, this is the hardest bullshit I have ever attempted to cook’.

Gabriel leaves his single duffel bag on the entrance. He suppresses a chuckle when he hears the man curse again. Slowly and silently, he gets closer to the kitchen, the old wood beneath his feet creaking.

Finally, after a few more steps, he gets his arms wrapped around the other man’s waist, making him yelp in surprise.

“Whatever you’re cooking, I can tell it’s already inedible,” says Gabriel, resting his chin on the man’s shoulder.

“Oh, yeah?” replies the one and only Jack Morrison, Overwatch commander, wearing an apron of polka dots. “Then you try making the dinner.”

Gabriel gasps, sarcastic. “Yes, let me try to redo it all at eight pm on Christmas Eve. I might be good but I don’t do that kind of miracles, Jack.”

Jack grunts. “Please get off of me and taste it.”

Gabriel does as he is told. He unwraps himself from the blond man and takes the spoonful of whatever Jack is offering him. He closes his mouth quickly and swallows even quicker, still feeling the burnt and over seasoned food going down his throat. He makes a face and then coughs.

“What the fuck was that, Jack?” he runs across the kitchen to get himself a glass of water. He gulps it down to wash away the taste. Jack looks at him from behind the counter, frowning. “Was that even food?”

“Yes, it was!” replies Jack. “Perfectly fine food. If you don’t like, then don’t fucking come to my Christmas dinner.”

Gabriel raises both eyebrows, defiantly. “Really? Then why don’t you taste it?”

Jack huffs indignantly in response but do takes a step closer to the pot on the stove.

“You’re just a pissbaby, Gabriel. This is a nice Christmas dinner.”

“Jack, just taste it.”

Jack huffs again and takes the same spoon in which he fed Gabriel. He looks at Gabriel again just to make him know he’s not backing off that easily and brings the spoon to his mouth.

*

Forty minutes and a small fight later (which Gabriel won), both of them sit on the only couch of the living room. Jack still has his apron on and Gabriel is drinking the warmest, shittiest beer of his life that he found on the fridge.

“That was shit,” finally admits Jack with his face buried in his hands. His voice comes out muffled but still understandable.

Gabriel nods.

“Yeah, you’re right, Jackie.”

Jack groans. “What are we going to eat? Everything is closed at this hour.”

Gabriel leaves his beer on the small coffee table and casually pats Jack’s head, making him lift it and look at him. His clear blue eyes are filled with frustration and a bit of shame. Gabriel doesn’t take his hand off.

“I screwed up,” says Jack in a sigh. “I thought I would surprise you with a nice dinner because I knew you were arriving later than me and I mean, it’s Christmas…”

“Hey, Jack,” Gabriel lowers his stare to look at his partner. His own voice turns softer. “It’s fine. No big deal. If I wanted a fancy dinner, I’d have gone to the UN party.”

That does make Jack crack a little smile.

“I see. You wanted the shittiest Christmas dinner and that is why you came to me.”

Gabriel leans enough to get his face close to Jack’s, the tip of his nose barely touching his. “Always, _cariño_.”

Jack leans into the touch, too. Their foreheads softly collide and Jack’s hands go to the shoulder of Gabriel, preventing him from going too far away.

The moment breaks apart when their stomachs grumble at the same time.

“What are we going to eat now?” asks Jack.

Gabriel stays silent for a few minutes until he starts shaking from his suppress laughter.

“You want a fancy dinner?” Gabriel asks back.

“No. I don’t like fancy dinners and fancy dinners don’t like me,” he replies and Gabriel finally unleashes his laughter.

“You know, this pizza place closes in one hour.”

*

The clearly bored teenager who brings them the pizza squints underneath the frame of the door.

“Do you… appear on the TV?” he asks and Jack can already see Gabriel shaking of laughter on the couch. Again. “Wait, no. Are you famous? I feel like I’ve seen your face before…”

The teenager continues squinting at his face but Jack quickly takes out his wallet from the back pocket of his pants and takes a twenty bill. He practically shoves it in the hands of the teenager without giving him much time to react.

But the young man is unfazed and continues squinting at him. Now, Jack can clearly hear Gabriel’s laughter and suppresses a sigh.

“You… have a talk show on the X Channel, right?”

Gabriel starts howling with laughter.

And Jack takes another twenty bill from his wallet and shoves it in the hands of the teenager. “Please leave,” he says before almost slamming the door in his face.

When he comes back to the living room, Gabriel has a shit-eating grin and Jack rolls his eyes.

“So,” he begins, teasingly. “A talk show star, huh? Another one to the list of your talents.”

“Shut up, Gabriel,” Jack replies and leaves the pizza box on the table. Gabriel chuckles one last time before getting up and going to the entrance for his duffel bag.

“I brought presents,” Gabriel says, turning back and opening his bag. He takes out a bottle of tequila, a small box and a black plastic bag.

Jack at the sight of the bottle of tequila, raises an eyebrow.

“You brought alcohol,” he says, pointing the obvious.

“Remember the trip to Mexico I made McCree take three weeks ago?” Gabriel says, going back to the living room, a grin on his lips. “It was to ensure the goods for this day.”

Jack doesn’t say anything because, really, he isn’t surprised. He crosses his arms and lets Gabriel put the tequila bottle on the small table.

“But that isn’t the important thing, Jackie,” Gabriel continues while opening the box and the black plastic bag. From the inside of the box, he takes out a bread. It has a circular shape and it’s adorned on top by strips of food he doesn’t recognize. Gabriel looks weirdly proud about it. “This is _Rosca de Reyes_ [1]. I forced McCree to bake it with me.”

“It must be tough having you as a boss,” Jack says, genuinely feeling sorry for McCree and his fate of being Gabriel’s errand boy.

In response, Gabriel clicks his tongue. “Look, we traditionally eat it on the sixth of January, the day of _Los Reyes Magos_ [2]. It would have been impossible for me to get this at Gibraltar before. I also had to get the ingredients from Mexico, like the _ate_. [3]”

Jack gets closer to the bread to inspect it. It smells good, although the sloppy looks do take some points off.

“And I also made McCree get this for me,” from the plastic bag, he takes out a chocolate bar wrapped in thin paper. “ _Chocolate Abuelita_ , Jack! A classic for this cold weather!”

“I feel like McCree is the one that should eat all of this,” says Jack and Gabriel laughs.

“I’ll heat up the milk,” he replies, already walking to the kitchen. “We can eat the pizza while the chocolate is made.”

*

His head slumps against Jack’s shoulder.

He almost forgot how cold the old house could get. The lights are off and the greasy pizza box now lays on the floor, forgotten. The matching mugs Ana got them years ago as a joke are on the coffee table, the chocolate still hot. His master piece, la Rosca de Reyes, is gone.

“Haha, _Rosca de Reyes_ ,” Gabriel says, his muffled voice against the fabric of the shirt Jack is wearing. “ _Reyes_ , get it?”

“You make the worst jokes when you’re drunk,” Jack huffs but Gabriel knows better than that and he can almost guess the smile on his lips.

“And you get mean when you drink, golden boy,” replies Gabriel.

Jack snorts.

“Yeah.”

They both fall silent, enough with hearing the other’s slow breaths. Jack hand’s reaches for Gabriel’s and they intertwine fingers in the middle of the darkness, almost shyly, like schoolboys afraid of getting caught.

“What time is it?” Jack asks.

“Two am.”

“We spent the night drinking,” Jack groans. “Drinking and eating pizza.”

“Good thing our parents won’t have to catch us cuddling on the couch while hangover,” Gabriel’s voice takes a soft tone, kind and warm. He almost laughs at the thought. “We won’t have to hide the tequila bottle underneath my bed.”

Jack snorts again.

“We won’t have to explain why there are no girls at our parties, just the two of us.”

“Just the two of us,” repeats Gabriel in a whisper. His body automatically gets closer to Jack, the blond man accepting the touch. “That would have been a nice world.”

He can’t help feel the sadness about it. About the cruel reality they have to live in and the absurd nostalgia of a past he can only imagine. About how they should have been two teenagers in love, growing up in the same small town, without the threats of war and their futures stained with violence and death.

About how Overwatch shouldn’t have existed at all so they could run away. Together.

So the only thing Gabriel Reyes has left is enjoying everything he can. The soft breathing and the dry humor, and the touch of blond hair under his fingertips. And the blue eyes that look at him so earnest that it hurts him.

“Let’s dance,” Gabriel proposes. “And make more chocolate while we are at it.”

Gabriel is the first one to get up from the warm embrace they are sharing. He extends his hand to Jack, a bit reluctant, until the other man finally takes it.

Their bodies press together. Hard muscle against hard muscle, Gabriel with his arms around Jack’s torso and Jack’s hands gently playing with the curls on his head. He rests his cheek against Jack's shoulder.

His feet slowly move and Jack follows him. He sets the pace, unhurried, to the rhythm of a silent song. He knows the words and sings them to Jack close to his ear.

“ _Bésame mucho, como si fuera esta noche la última vez_ ,” Gabriel can feel Jack shivering and, somehow, the fingers tangled in his hair get hungrier. “ _Que tengo miedo a tenerte y perderte después._ [4]”

They stumble across the room, the soft Spanish words barely murmured. The old wood creaks beneath them with every step they take and the darkness only makes the moment more intimate.

They reach the counter of the kitchen but they do not go further than that. Gabriel pins Jack against the cold tides of the counter, his hands trampling him on each side.

In the dark, Gabriel sees the face of the man he loves. Breathless, he reaches to caress Jack’s cheek and the touch sends a shock down to the very core of his being.

Jack looks at him and Gabriel stares back.

The cold room and the wood creaking. The darkness and the hard muscles against his body. The alcohol and the slightly bitter taste of the chocolate. The grease the pizza left behind and the song his _abuelita_ used to sing on warm nights.

And the absolute love he feels for this man who can’t cook for shit.

“I love you,” Gabriel Reyes says and he doesn’t even need to think about it twice.

The house of his safest memories, the only place he ever allowed himself to be Gabriel Reyes. No Blackwatch commander, no soldier, no hero of the Omnic Crisis. A place much like his heart: messy, old, sometimes cold and abandoned. A place where no one could get close.

And Jack Morrison has the only spare key.

“I love you,” Jack replies and Gabriel’s knees feel weak all of sudden.

_I love you so much I sometimes feel like I could die from it_ , he wants to add but his body reacts before his mouth can. Gabriel leans and takes what it’s his.

A kiss so gentle he feels like melting. Lips barely touching, softly, slowly, unaware of its own danger.

Their fingers find each other in the darkness and stay there, intertwined, incapable of letting the other go.

And they kiss again, and again, only interrupted by quiet laughs and whispers of how they are such idiots for even thinking they could get more chocolate at 3 am.

*

Gabriel Reyes wakes up with a very heavy man on top of him.

Blond hair tickles his nose and soft snores can be heard coming from the man crushing him. He shakes Jack in an attempt to wake him up.

Nothing.

Gabriel sighs and tries again, this time harder. The snores stop, only to resume five seconds later.

“Jack, wake up, you’re fucking heavy,” he croaks.

Jack, in response, only says a ‘hmmm’ but still does not attempt to get off of Gabriel.

An increasingly irritated, and hangover, Gabriel tries again, shaking him as hard as he can without hurting his lover.

Which obviously causes the old couch to creak and break. The support of the couch gives in and practically launches them to the floor.

Gabriel is the first one to fall, hitting his back. He groans against the awfully cold floor. “Goddamnit, Morrison.”

Also on the floor, Jack replies with a pained grunt. “Did you really have to launch me to the fucking floor?”

“I didn’t do shit,” Gabriel defends himself, slowly getting up. He really doesn’t want to fight right now with his head spinning and hurting like a goddamn truck just ran over him. “The couch is old as hell. It broke because we are two grown ass men and we weight a fuckton.”

Jack only groans, not wanting to argue with that. Both of them get up slowly.

“Fuck, my head hurts,” Jack says and he stumbles towards the kitchen.

Gabriel nods. After all, it’s been a while since the two of them got drunk.

He sees the broad back of Jack disappearing behind the door of the kitchen and he sits on the coffee table not daring to go further than the living room.

However, when he focuses his eyes on the entrance, he catches two small boxes wrapped with red paper in the entrance. Gabriel squints and frowns at the same time.

Jack comes back from the kitchen with a glass of water and takes a seat on the coffee table too.

“What is that?” Gabriel points at the presents and Jack’s expression immediately shows embarrassment. Gabriel squints and frowns harder. “What?”

Jack clears his voice. “I, huh… I bought you a present.”

“And you left them on the entrance? Why?”

“I honestly thought you would notice sooner, but we were too busy drinking and eating, I forgot about them,” Jack says and Gabriel almost wants to laugh. He points at the presents. “It’s Christmas, I guess you can open them.”

Gabriel gets up and stumbles his way towards the presents. The small boxes barely weight on his hands and he sure as hell hopes Jack didn’t get him anything expensive because… He only gifted him bread, alcohol and chocolate.

Gabriel returns to the coffee table to sit and opens the first box. Inside, there is small electronic card. He immediately turns to look at Jack, raising an eyebrow, inquiring.

“I, huh…” Jack looks down at his hands. “That’s the key to my apartment. I wanted to ask you this for so long and I thought this would be a good moment,” Jack looks up again and his stare pierces Gabriel. “I want us to live together. It’s fine if you don’t want to, though…”

“Are you an idiot?” replies Gabriel and Jack looks startled for a second. Then a huge grin appears on Gabriel’s face. “God knows what awful things your kitchen has seen. Of course I want to move in with you. And now McCree and Genji owe me ten bucks.”

Jack raises and eyebrow at that and is about to question why his Blackwatch agents owe him money but is interrupted by Gabriel opening the second present.

Inside, there are two rings.

Gabriel stares at Jack and Jack stares back, the silence in the room so heavy his lungs feel like collapsing at any moment.

“I…”

The question never comes because both of them already know the answer.

And the kisses that proceed the silent answer only make them hungrier, starving. Fingers tangled on hair and whispers that say ‘yes, yes, I do,’ as they stagger to the nearest room are all what fill the old house, cold and abandoned.

But safe.

**Author's Note:**

> [1] and [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosca_de_reyes  
> [3] is a kind of Mexican jelly made of many typical fruits.  
> [4] we all know Bésame mucho and I had to be indulgent with myself. This is my favorite version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSELNSslBVk


End file.
